


call me

by driver



Category: Hotline Miami (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Mild Gore, implied jacket/beard?, there's a few bad words watch out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 02:29:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6405076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driver/pseuds/driver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>my take on the ending of neighbors ☎️</p>
            </blockquote>





	call me

Driving.

That was his coping mechanism, since he had none else. The distinct lack of people in his life and his absence of a personality scraped at the back of his throat like a blade digging into skin, harder and harder and grinding until there was nothing left. An icy sort of chill ran up his skin at the thought, but a pleasurable one. It was enjoyable to be pathologically egocentric, because then, he didn’t owe anyone shit. 

But sometimes, he didn't drive right away. He exit a building after a mission matted with blood- none of which was his own- and leaned against the hood of his car and stared up at the sky. He had nothing but time. 

But to pass said time, he'd squeeze his hands together. It was something he was used to doing; a strange method of getting by while waiting for something, anything, to keep him concreted to reality as he faded out into memories too bright to recall. 

The golf club rived his skull. One well-placed swing had cleaved his head open and split the insides all over the walls and the floors. Nothing about that felt particularly wrong, even though he didn't know who he killed or- even _why,_ but he found himself tracing back to the crunch of the glass underneath the soles of his shoes as he walked away, and the last words of his victim and even the bloodcurdling scream he produced before the swing. And after that, when he milled his viscera to a pulp with one of the meat cleavers strung about and his own hands...

He squeezed harder.

A nice sort of pain rung up both his arms; a 'fuck me, I'm rotting inside' kind of pain. His chest heaved up and down and a grin crossed his face, the same way it did after he killed a large number of people. He liked this fucked up lifestyle that he'd accepted being thrust into. Anything was enough to sate his bloodlust.

He decided he was in the mood for a drink. 

It didn’t take a pair of eyes to see that the man was off- especially if you wore glasses- but that didn’t register well for some. With a distinctly crooked ‘strut’, Jacket entered the bar and walked aimlessly over to the counter, throwing his weight on it. None of the patrons seemed to mind or even acknowledge his presence, but the barkeep did. 

Beard sighed. Those were the same mindless, zoned out blue eyes that he saw daily in ‘85. They were the same eyes, of course, but what was behind them wasn’t the same at all. 

He cleared his throat and stepped up to par with his normal chipper ‘the-whole-world-is-fine-tonight’ voice. 

“Welcome back, sir! How are you tonight?” He went to work on polishing an already spotless glass and looked briefly looked up to Jacket. His eyes said nothing. He looked tired, apathetic, and angry at the same time. 

What was there to say about a look like that? 

Jacket started muttering. 

“You, uh... You don’t look so happy.” There was a pause where Beard bit his lip and tried to think of something catchy to say, but all he could produce was something just as cryptic. “To be honest, I don’t feel too good either.” 

The muttering merely persisted; quiet enough so that Beard could freely talk over it, but if he stopped for even a moment, he’d pick up on it. Jacket was parroting the words of his victims, as he did sometimes, and he’d moved his hands onto the counter and began squeezing his hands together. 

“This can’t be happening,” he mumbled. “I’m so close.” 

Beard tuned it out and polished harder, nearly cracking the glass under the force of his hand. “There’s, uh... Something in the air...” For a moment, he turned to Jacket and looked at him with pity in his eyes. “I don’t know... I just have this really bad feeling.” 

Jacket’s speech began to deteriorate. His words became slurred until they were barely processable and they just sounded like faint groans of agony. His hand covered his mouth and his other tapped on the bar’s counter-top. 

_What the hell is going on?_ Beard felt like he was watching him go insane. It might have been some kind of joke, or he was already drunk, or at the very least, _some_ logical reasoning. 

“Like... Uh, like something terrible has happened tonight.” 

He found himself concreted to the ground. Beard felt indefinably strange. That triggered something- memories, but not quite distant ones. It was the same terrible feeling he had when he’d called and asked for a copy of the Polaroids they took in ‘85- 

Beard laughed. It came out of nowhere. “I haven’t felt this way since San Francisco.” 

He put down the glass and leaned over the bar’s counter top, pressing his forearms against Jacket’s, and looking down into him with the world’s most overly sincere smile. “I don’t like it. Not one bit." 

Jacket tried to look away because the distance between them was closing, but Beard grabbed his chin and forced their eyes to meet. He leaned forward. "How about you, Richard?” 

Jacket’s lips were tightly pursed. Beard was rubbing the side of his face. He was beside himself. But then, his eyes narrowed, and he gave the faintest impression of a smile. He’d never squeezed his hands so tightly. 

“Me neither, Ben.” 

“So, how about a drink, huh?” Beard adjusted his frames. “It’s on me.” 

After deciding he’d stick around, Jacket sat at the bar and ignored Beard’s constant comments on the color of his jacket. ‘Was there an accident at the cranberry mill?’ this, and ‘We have Bordeaux that shade, if you want some’ that. The most he did was smirk. 

His cheek rested on his palm and he looked off towards the door. Beard agreed to fix him something strong, but the most he’d give him was a light Bacardi or something fruity. He didn’t want to see an old friend doing worse than he already was. 

They shared more careless banter about the past. Beard prioritized him over all over patrons- who often had to shout to get his attention- and focused on him more out a mutual respect for him. Jacket often said much with few words. 

That stopped when he received his drink. It was something fruity on the rocks. 

Jacket took a sip and his face twisted. “What is this?” 

“Something nice, just for you.” 

Jacket sat in silence, refusing to meet Beard’s gaze. He dropped the drink onto the counter, getting a decent amount of it to spill, and he began to clench his hands together again. 

Beard sighed and knit his eyebrows. “I worry about you, you know.” 

“Okay.” 

“The walls have ears. You’re going to get yourself killed.” 

“Okay.” 

“I just want you to be careful, because-” He tripped over his words. He turned around, putting his hands to his sides and exhaling deeply. “Remember what I did for you?” 

“That was four years ago.” 

“It doesn’t mean _anything_ to you?” 

Jacket didn’t respond. 

A short-lived silence lingered. There were still people talking in the bar; going about their business and enjoying themselves, but Beard couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat. He turned around to make something else. Something stronger. 

Beard's voice arose, quiet. “People never get the flowers while they can still smell them.” 

The room was lull, and every term hung in the air, seemingly suspended in time. Jacket looked at the back of Beard’s head, ever so mildly forlorn. For at least five minutes, no words were exchanged, until Beard heaved a heavy sigh and came back with a drink. “Hennessy mixed with Bacardi Dark. It’s _strong._ ” 

“To go.” 

Jacket noticed the look on Beard’s face, and averted his vision. “I have to return some video tapes.” 

“Uh-huh... I’ll see you soon. Remember what I told you,” came Beard’s voice. He turned around to address his other patrons, but froze dead in his tracks. “I _will_ see you soon, right?” 

Jacket squeezed his knuckles quickly, nearly dropping his drink for the second time. That remark made his limbs feel oddly loose and pleasant. A feeling sunk into his gut, the same one from earlier.

"Ben?” 

“Mm?” 

“Call me.”

**Author's Note:**

> the original title for this was going to be "It's On The Bed - A Jacket/Beard Fanfiction"


End file.
